EDINBURG, Texas – Despite dropping a pitcher's duel to UT Rio Grande Valley on Thursday night at UTRGV Baseball Stadium, 2-1, the Wolverines have officially clinched a spot in next week's WAC Baseball Tournament due to a win from Northern Colorado over Seattle U earlier in the day. 
 
The Wolverines (14-37, 9-16 WAC) will now return to the WAC Baseball Stadium at Hohokam Stadium in Mesa, Arizona, on May 22-26, after failing to qualify to the league tournament for the first time in program history a season ago. Prior to heading to Mesa for next week's tournament, UVU will first look to earn the five seed for the conference event with two regular-season games remaining this weekend at UTRGV (32-19, 17-8 WAC). 
 
Four Utah Valley pitchers combined to allow just two runs on five hits on the day, but a run from the Vaqueros in the eighth along with the winning run in the bottom of the ninth was enough for UTRGV to pull out the walk-off win. 
 
Senior Jake Carr pitched 5.0 scoreless inning for the Wolverines on the night with four strikeouts and only one walk, as he and UT Rio Grande Valley's Trevelle Hill were deadlocked in a pitcher's duel early. Carr retired the side in order in the third and faced just four batters in the first, fourth and fifth innings to keep the Wolverines in the ballgame. 
 
After both teams then went to the bullpen in the sixth still scoreless, Mason Gray continued right where Carr left off by throwing two innings of scoreless relief for Utah Valley. Still 0-0 in the eighth, UTRGV then got a leadoff walk from Jacob Flores. He then advanced to third following a UVU error and a sacrifice bunt with one away. Flores then came in to score the first run of the ballgame on a sac fly from Anthony Gomez to give UTRGV a late 1-0 lead. 
 
Mick Madsen then doubled with two away in the top of the ninth to start a late rally for the Wolverines. Drew Sims then followed by reaching on an error and pinch-runner Jake Plecas moved over to third. With two outs and two strikes to Kade Poulsen, the UVU first basemen delivered with a game-tying two-out RBI hit through the left side to tie the ballgame at 1-1 and send the contest to the bottom of the ninth. 
 
With one out and two on in the bottom of the ninth, UVU's Travis Parker then managed to draw a flyout for the second out of the frame but UTRGV's Hunter Lessard advanced to third on the play to put runners on the corners. With two away and the winning run on third, a pitch managed to get away from Parker and go past catcher Skyler Davis all the way to the backstop to allow Lessard to come in and score the winning run on a walk-off wild pitch. 
 
Jesse Schmit (4-7) suffered the defeat on the mound for UVU after surrendering one run on no hits in one inning of work, while UTRGV's Ryan Jackson (4-3) was credited with the win after allowing one unearned run in 2.0 innings of work. 
 
The freshman Madsen led UVU at the plate in the ballgame by going 2-for-4 with a double in the ninth, while Poulsen went 1-for-4 with the clutch RBI single in the ninth. Kody Hall too finished posted a strong outing at the plate by 2-for-3. Christian Sepulevda paced the Vaqueros by going 2-for-4 with a pair of singles.  
 
The Wolverines and Vaqueros will continue the final regular-season series with game two on Friday at 6 p.m. MT/7 p.m. CT at UTRGV Baseball Stadium. The regular-season finale will then come on Saturday at 11 a.m. MT/noon CT. Both games will be streamed live on the WAC Digital Network.

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